


Right Front Cross

by songs_of_the_moon



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Gifts, Knitting, M/M, Philosophizing, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs_of_the_moon/pseuds/songs_of_the_moon
Summary: "Trouble sleepin'? Me too. . . . Too many ghosts in this place."





	Right Front Cross

Hanzo forgot the dream as soon as he woke, but the weight of it remained. He was used to the nightmares by now, used to waking confused and out of breath at three in the morning. He knew sleep would be out of reach for at least a few more hours. There was a book that Genji had lent him that he hadn't had a chance to start yet. That would be a good way to distract himself until dawn.

But not here. The room was pressing in on all sides, and Hanzo found it increasingly difficult to breathe under the pressure.

The common room, then. It would be empty this time of night.

* * *

The common room was not empty. McCree had claimed one of the couches. There was a bag to one side of him, connected to the knitting in his hands by a strand of bright pink yarn. On his other side was a piece of paper.

“Howdy,” McCree said.

“Howdy,” Hanzo echoed. The word seemed to taste of smoke and gunpowder.

McCree gave a snort of laughter. “You're up awful late.”

Hanzo said nothing.

“Trouble sleepin’? Me too.” McCree rustled in the bag, drew out several more inches of yarn, and resumed knitting. “Too many ghosts in this place.”

Hesitantly, like he was approaching a skittish animal, Hanzo made his way to the armchair nearest to McCree's couch. He settled in with Genji’s book, but found himself entirely unable to focus on it. The quiet clicking of the needles kept drawing his attention.

If McCree noticed his distraction, he made no comment.

Hanzo pretended to read, stealing glances at the needles in McCree’s hands. They were some kind of metal, probably aluminum, and they flashed in the fluorescent light. McCree looked up suddenly and caught his eye; Hanzo looked away guiltily.

McCree’s hands stilled. He was quiet for a long moment. “Gabe taught me,” he said. His voice was studiously casual.

 _Gabriel Reyes._ “Your commander.”

“The one and only.” McCree made a few more stitches. “He used to make me stuff, sometimes. Scarves and gloves, even a sweater once.” He paused a moment to count the stitches on one needle, then consulted the pattern on the sofa next to him. Apparently satisfied with whatever he'd read, he resumed knitting. “For Jack and Ana and Fareeha, too. I think he just liked havin’ people to make things for.”

“Do you?” Hanzo asked before he could stop himself.

McCree glanced at him. “Do I what?”

“Enjoy making things for others.”

“Suppose so.” McCree shrugged. “I like to make things, and I can’t just make’em for myself. A man only needs so many scarves.”

 _I like to make things._ That struck an unexpected chord. “I practice calligraphy,” Hanzo heard himself say. “I also paint, on occasion.” He watched McCree knit for a moment. “I do not share my work with others.” The admission was surprisingly embarrassing.

“Can't say I blame you. I bet it's real tough, puttin’ a piece of yourself on display.”

Hanzo had never thought of his paintings or calligraphy as pieces of himself, but he said nothing.

“This kinda thing is easier to share,” McCree went on. “I'm just followin’ a pattern. Someone else did the hard part.”

“What are you making?” It seemed small, but Hanzo had no real point of comparison.

“A hat for Hana. ‘s gonna be a scarf an’ mittens, too.” McCree rifled through the bag. After some muttered cursing, he produced two papers, folded together into a neat square. He unfolded them and handed them to Hanzo.

They were patterns for a matched set. The instructions were as inscrutable as Hanzo had expected them to be, but the pictures of the finished products were clear enough. They were cute, very girly. Hana would like them. Hanzo gave McCree the papers back. “Are they complicated?”

“Naw. It’s mostly moss stitch, some cables. Somethin’ to keep my hands busy.” McCree counted his stitches again, then picked up a third needle and transferred a handful of stitches to it. He resumed knitting normally for a few stitches, then worked the stitches on the extra needle. Hanzo watched the process curiously. “If I had any sense, I’d’a put markers on here so I didn’t hafta count every time.”

“You have never had sense,” Hanzo said. His tone was not exactly warm, but it was not as cool as it once might have been.

McCree smiled at him, as if he had been keeping track of Hanzo’s thaw. Perhaps he had been. “You got that right, sugar.”

The silence stretched between them, easy and unforced. Hanzo had given up on Genji’s book, choosing instead to watch the practiced motions of McCree’s hands. The pink hat grew slowly.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” McCree asked suddenly. His voice was quiet, but Hanzo nearly jumped all the same.

 _Hands that are so well-suited to destruction being turned to creation. Making things for others. How relaxed you look. The way the yarn catches on the calluses on your hand._ “Nothing of import.”

McCree nodded, hummed an affirmative. “You gonna sit there and watch me knit all night?”

“Perhaps.”

A huff of laughter.

Hanzo smiled despite himself.

* * *

Hanzo woke at dawn with a crick in his neck. He was still in the armchair. The afghan that was usually on the back of one of the couches had been draped over him. It was, he noted, knitted.

He rubbed the fabric between his fingers and wondered.

* * *

///

* * *

Jesse found Hanzo on the roof. He hadn’t been looking for him, exactly, but Genji had seen him drifting listlessly through the kitchen and mentioned, in entirely too innocent a tone, that he had passed his brother on the stairs. Jesse had taken the hint.

So Jesse had been expecting to find Hanzo on the roof. He had not been expecting to find him with an easel and a little folding table covered in paints.

“McCree.” Hanzo shifted slightly, hiding the canvas with the bulk of his shoulders.

 _I do not share my work with others,_ Jesse remembered. He’d half convinced himself that he’d dreamt that night a week ago, but here was proof that part of it, at least, had happened. “Didn’t mean t’disturb you. I could go, if you wanted, or. . . ?”

Hanzo frowned. “You may stay,” he finally said, “but I would prefer if you do not. . . watch.”

“Sure thing, darlin’.” Jesse stepped around him to lean his back against the railing. The easel was between them, but he could still see most of Hanzo’s face. He busied himself with a cigarillo until the weight of Hanzo’s stare was too much and he turned around to look out at the water instead. Hanzo made a sound that might have been a quiet laugh, and Jesse smiled.

Jesse watched the gulls swooping over the waves. From this distance they seemed graceful and poised, though he knew that up close they were petty, squabbling things. “I guess you got good lightin’ up here?” he said eventually, just to say something.

“Good lighting and solitude.”

Deciding not to dignify that with a response, Jesse said instead, “I shoulda brought that hat I’m makin’ for Hana.”

“I will likely be up here for some time, if you would like to retrieve it and rejoin me.” Hanzo’s voice was careful, the closest thing to uncertain Jesse had ever heard from him.

Jesse turned. Hanzo met his gaze over the easel. His ears were red, Jesse noted with an absurd rush of fondness. “Another time, maybe. I think I’d rather just enjoy the view.” He smirked roguishly, which netted him an eyeroll.

“You will never finish it if you never work on it,” Hanzo said, turning his eyes back to the canvas.

Jesse shrugged. “There ain’t no hurry. ‘Sides, I got a coupla other projects I’m ignorin’, too. Plenty to do when I feel like doin’ it.”

Hanzo was silent, either ignoring him or focused on the painting. Jesse didn’t mind, taking the opportunity to study him. The t-shirt he wore was too small, stretched tight across his chest and shoulders and straining around his biceps. Jesse could only see him a bit at a time as he moved in front of the easel, but it was enough to see the way the sunlight turned his eyes whiskey-colored, they way he frowned in concentration, not unlike the expression he wore when lining up a shot.

Jesse had once watched a documentary about the history of tattooing. There had been a long segment about old school, ink-drenched yakuza. He thought of it unexpectedly as he watched Hanzo paint, killers who covered themselves in art.

More absurd was the sudden mental image of Hanzo with a pompadour. Jesse snickered.

Hanzo frowned at him. “What?”

“Nothin’, darlin’, nothin’ at all.”

* * *

Jesse did, eventually, go get his project bag. Instead of working on Hana’s hat, he set to a half-finished, outrageously orange scarf.

“What,” Hanzo asked in something like shock, “is that?”

“Scarf for Zenyatta. Genji commissioned it.” Jesse took a moment to savor the look of absolute horror on Hanzo’s face, watching it slide into one of resignation.

“I suppose he picked the color himself.” Hanzo nearly smiled, expression fond. “I did not realize that you took commissions.”

“I don’t, usually, but once Genji gets set on an idea it’s real hard to talk him out of it.” Jesse shrugged. “I only charged him twenty bucks for it.” That didn’t even cover the materials, let alone labor, but he didn’t have the heart to ask for more.

“He has always been stubborn.” Hanzo did smile, then, a small quirk of his mouth. “Did he have a deadline for it?”

Jesse shook his head. “I asked if it was for a special occasion, but he said he just wanted t’give him somethin’ nice.”

Hanzo laughed quietly. “Once, when we were very young, he tried to give me a frog that he’d caught. He was very upset when it fled as soon as he let it go, so I helped him catch another.”

“Guess I better tell Lúcio to watch out.”

“You are ridiculous,” Hanzo said, but the fondness had not entirely left his voice.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way, darlin’.” Jesse batted his eyelashes.

Hanzo snorted and said nothing. He was still smiling.

Jesse leaned back against the railing, content.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (The outrageously orange scarf is going to have bright green tassels when it's finished, by the by.)


End file.
